Windy McPherson's Son

that had sent the lantern swinging in Freedom's hand. At the front of a white fram

h giving a decision in the matter, and then turned and without

d of him that in his youth he had been a gambler on the Mississippi River and that he had taken part in more than one wild adventure in the old days. After the Civil War he had come to end his days in Caxton, living alone and occupying himself by keeping year after year a carefully tabulated record of weather variations.

d depend upon that-what deadliness!" he thought, and, thrusting his hand into his pocket, felt with p

ht on by his mother's approaching death, Sam felt a strong thrill of confidence in his own future that made his homeward walk almost cheerful

f the world watching a mangy dog chase a ball and

had become what he wanted to be, a good business man, one of the men who direct and control the affairs in which they are concerned because of a quality in them

hin. Back into his mind came the old man he had seen at the gate and with him the thought that his mother

m. He stood at the gate, the wind singing in the trees along the street and driving an occasional drop of rain against his cheek, and thought of it and of his life with his mother. During the last two or three years he had been trying to make things up to her. After the sale of the newspaper business and the beginning of his success with Freedom he had driven her from the washtub and since t

ing understanding of her making it unnecessary to him. Now in the darkness, before the house, he thought of the evenings he had spent with her and of the pitiful waste that had been made of her fine life. Things that had hurt him and against which he had been bitter and unforgiving became of small import, even the d

cture of her long gaunt face, ghastly now against the white of the pillows. A picture of George Eliot, tacked to the wall behind a broken harness in the kitchen of Freedom Smith's house, had caught his eye some days before, and in the darkness he took it from his pocket an

e. It was extraordinarily vivid in his mind. He thought that even now he could remember every word that had been said. The sick woman had talked of her youth in Ohio, and as she talked pictures had come into the boy's mind. She had told him of her days as a bound girl in the family

. Sam had smiled at the picture she drew of the young man who walked up and down the v

eagerly, thinking it unbelievably romantic that so dashing a man sh

as meant nothing but labour and unhappines

e he bought a store and where, within three years, he had put the store

how. The ex-soldier had become a singer of comic songs and had written letter after letter to the young wife telling of the applause that greeted his efforts. Sam could picture the performances, the little dimly-lighted schoolhou

me a penny," the sick woman had

talked of her own people. Her father had been killed in the woods by a falling tree. Of her m

d sat in the parlour of an Ohio farmhouse while a fierce old woman looked at her

rmhouse, and finding the woman alone tried to bully her, and that the tramp, and the woman, then in her prime, fought

ground and then filled him up with hard cider so that he came

d because of the failings of the father, of how she had been compelled to go out of the house to wander in the dark streets to avoid the endless evenings of war talk always brought on by a guest i

ave of respect for his sister had pervaded the boy. "What a sum it must have cost," he thought, and looked with new interest at the back of the lover and at the flushed cheek and shining eyes of his sister. When the lover, turning, had seen young McPherson standing at the counter, he l

elling," sh

retending," the

a babe and a husband in the same month had, after all, ended bet

oyed for the purpose, had prepared the evening meal and now bega

woman went out of the house and pre

f the bringing of the daughter was an attempt on the part of the woman to abide by the letter of the code

d worn and wore a set of ill-fitting false teeth that rattled as she talked.

rink. He stood by the door holding to the knob w

e may die any day," he wailed

lurching forward, fell into a chair and began sobbing loudly. In the road outside a man driving a horse stopped and Sam could hear the scraping of the wheels against the

wrong street," thou

t the wall and the sight of it added fuel to the anger smouldering in Sam's heart. He remembered the day when he had stood in the store doorway with his mother and had seen the dismal and amusing failure of his father with

eep, his snores replacing the sobs that had stirred the b

en spasm of hatred as he looked at the man before him. The cheerless little kitchen, the cold, half-baked potatoes and sausages on the table, and the drun

or had come the children. Led by the eldest, a great tomboy girl of fourteen with the strength of a man and an inclination to burst out of her clothes at unexpected places, they had come charging into the stables to carry Sam off to the dinner, Freedom laughingly urging them on, his voi

g in the barren little kitchen before the untasted, badly-cooked food. Upon it lay a profusion of bread and meat and great dishes heaped with steaming pota

ssed them about, the wife or the tomboy girl bringing unending fresh supplies from the kitchen. The joy of the evening with its talk of the chi

new anything like

began talking loudly-some old forgotten grievance coming

turning and facing the kitchen stove, as though addressing an audience. "It

ore a leaf from a notebook an

make another sound to disturb mother I will choke

s eyes. He was fighting with himself to control a desire to spring across the room and kill the man who he believed had brought his mother to her death and who

wly and then, not understanding its import and

ll you're getting too big and smart,

e crept around the table and put his han

ud, as though talking to a stranger. "I must c

m, looking down at him and studying the eyes and the colour in the cheeks, realised with a start that he had not for yea

eary washtub by just one long, hard grip at this lean throat

ude. Across the forehead ran a streak of mud picked up

m I would see his face as it looks now a

carefully and silently out at the kitchen door. The rain beat down upon him and, as he went around the house with his burden, the wind, shaking loose a dead branch from a small apple tree in the yard, blew it agains

walked with him on country roads and whose friendship he had dropped because of John Telfer's ti

kept saying over and over to hims